Blahh, Still Standing has been sitting in my 'Unfinished' folder for the longest time. I started it a little after I posted London Bridge, then it died. D: I seem to have gotten my original motivation, because now you're seeing it!

I noticed, I seem to be writing a lot of angsty AkuRoku fics lately. O.o Creepy.

I also really want to draw that scene of Roxas with his head on Axel's chest in front of the elevator. It sounds so cute. 3: But sadly, I lack artistic skills and can't draw it.

Enough with my babbling, ONWARD, TALLY HO, VAMINOS, ALLEZ, ETCETERA!

Chapter 2

One month later, the eighth of January, to be exact, a lot had changed since Axel left. Demyx had come, as promised, to pick up the rest of Axel's things. Axel himself had moved to an apartment off campus by himself, and switched all his classes to the nighttime to avoid Roxas, which worked very well. Roxas had been without a roommate for a week, so he'd finally gotten Hayner as a roommate when the time came. He still stared at Hayner's bed occasionally and pictured that Axel was sitting there, with his bright red hair, green eyes, and sly grin.

Nobody else noticed Roxas' loneliness, Hayner was too busy with Seifer, Sora was too busy with Riku, and the girls were all absorbed with Lolita clothes and stalking him and Sora. Riku had dubbed them as 'fag hags' which, according to Riku, meant that they stalked gay guys.

"Gee, that does well for my gay-boy self esteem," Roxas had said.

His classes were going well, he'd received a low mark in his Spanish class, a necessary addition to his diploma, but who really cares about Spanish anyway? He was at college so he could be a pediatric surgeon, as he'd planned in 5th grade when Sora had need a surgery to fix a heart defect that could have killed him, had it not been for the surgeon at Twilight Town Hospital. He wasn't planning on going to Mexico anytime soon, so Spanish didn't matter in the slightest. He was passing his physiology and anatomy classes with 95's, and his elective English class was giving him some inspiration to go into writing as well.

Riku and Sora had started going public, though they kept their bedroom escapades to a minimum now that Roxas visited them more often. Sora's birthday was coming up soon, and Roxas had gotten him a thirty dollar gift card to a local sweet shop that had all of Sora's favourite candy, including little candies shaped like keys that came in flavours from raspberry to kiwi to something called a paopu fruit.

Roxas sat in the middle of an unusually dull physiology class, about to doze off. Today, all they were doing was taking some notes on the organelles that were found in the heart. The professor's voice had him half asleep, and he noticed his handwriting becoming messier and messier, and his eyes didn't want to open whenever he blinked. He definitely got enough sleep, 8 hours was good for a college student, right? He still felt restless and tired, as if his brain had switched it's night and day time and it was time to go to bed. All he knew was that he needed to be awake before his next class, anatomy, or else Vexen might lynch him on the spot and use him as an anatomy dummy.

As if on cue, the professor declared that they could leave and collected his papers. One of the class kiss asses skittered to the front of the room to erase the blackboard, and another one of them ran to help the professor with his papers. Roxas rolled his eyes and followed the sane people out the doors of the classroom.

He had an hour lunch break before his anatomy class, so he went to the cafeteria to order a sandwich and some coffee. The line was longer than usual, Roxas noted as his stomach growled in disapproval. He could smell bacon cooking and could hear the coffee maker beeping to signal that it was done brewing. The sounds of the cafeteria were normal and every day, something Roxas looked forward to. Normal and every day were good, now that his life was a little more normal.

It was his turn in line, and made sure when ordering his sandwich to get some bacon on it. He didn't usually eat bacon, but it smelled good, so why the hell not?

He sat down with his tray at a table by himself, secluded in the corner and facing away from everyone else. He ate silently and stared out the window, looking at how it had started to snow. The flakes were tiny, but falling fast, creating a white-ish fog all around the campus. Grounds keepers were shoveling sidewalks as fast as they could, even though there was barely anyone outside. Students would rather stay dry by going the long way through buildings and be late, than go outside and be on time.

After twenty minutes, a whole sandwich with ham, chicken, bacon, Swiss cheese, lettuce and Italian dressing, and two cups of coffee, Roxas was finally awake. The awareness was sure to be short lived, however, since Roxas could never hold onto the caffeine buzz that kept normal people going for six hours, and Roxas could only hold onto his for two.

He got up, feeling bored just sitting there staring out the window, and threw out his plate and cup. He waved to Demyx, who was sitting with Zexion and gave him a sad smile. Roxas knew that he was feeling bad about Axel leaving, but Roxas pretended not to notice. He had better things to do, better people to see, and Axel wasn't about to get in the way of that, not if Roxas had anything to say about it.

Zexion and Demyx went back to studying for another exam they had, though Roxas knew that Demyx was the one studying and Zexion was the one helping, the smartass.

Roxas walked back to his dorm and was pleased when he saw that Hayner wasn't there. That meant he could take a short cat nap before having to go to class with Vexen teaching it, And he'd at least be a little more awake for it in case his coffee buzz ran out early. After setting the alarm so he could sleep for fifteen minutes, he'd settled under the covers for five minutes, and was just about to doze off, when someone banged open the door.

"Roxas!!!" he heard Sora yell and could imagine the brunette standing in his doorway with flailing arms.

"I'm trying to sleep, dumbass," Roxas grumbled and threw a pillow at Sora, smiling sleepily when he heard an oof that meant he'd hit where he aimed for.

"But Axel-"

"Like I give a fuck 'bout that asshole," Roxas said and buried his face into his pillow.

"His car slipped on ice-"

"Bitch deserved it."

"Roxas Ventus Strife, quit being such an ass and listen to me!" Sora snapped. Roxas growled at the mention of his middle name, but shut his mouth anyway. "Axel's car slipped on ice on the way here and he's in the ICU."

Roxas sat straight up in his bed. "Is he alright?!"

"Rox, Intensive Care Unit. Do you think he'd be there if he was alright?" Sora said and frowned.

"Ah shit!" Roxas jumped out of his bed and shivered due to his shirtless state. He didn't particularly worry about having no shirt in front of Sora, so he paid no mind to the brunette and pulled on a plain white tee shirt. "Tell Vexen where I am for me!"

"But Vexen scares me, Rox! I always think he's gonna rape me if I'm in his presence too long!" Sora whined.

"Then have Riku do it!" Roxas snapped impatiently.

Sora dodged Roxas as the blonde darted behind him to get a jacket from the doorknob and slipped his arms into the sleeves. Roxas nearly knocked Sora over when he flew by again, making Sora feel a lot like a pinball. Grabbing his sketch book, Roxas ran out the door, knocking Sora's shoulder and making the brunette spin around a couple of times.

"Roxas, wait! We can get you a ride!" Sora called down the hallway and Roxas practically sprinted to the elevator.

"I'm fine!" Roxas yelled back and hammered the down button for the elevator impatiently with his thumb. After much abuse, the elevator dinged happily, not really caring if Roxas was in a hurry or not. He pressed the button for the ground floor violently, and then started bouncing up and down while the elevator doors slowly slid shut.

He tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator slid down the chute, and nearly wanted to kill whoever decided to play a Christmas song for elevator music when it was January. Christmas is over, idiot, he thought and started grinding his teeth together.

The elevator finally let him escape, and he began running again towards the front doors of Twilight Town University. He could see that it was still snowing like hell out, and at the moment, he didn't care. All he cared about was seeing if Axel was alright.

A cold wind greeted him as he burst out the front doors of his college. The snow pelted into his eyes, making them water ridiculously. The grounds keepers that he'd seen shoveling before weren't doing their job very well, there was at least three inches on the ground where he ran, making the snow seep into his sneakers. Sure, snow was drier than rain, til it melted in your socks.

While running in the general direction of Twilight Town Hospital, Roxas couldn't stop his thought from running wild. It was his fault that Axel had gotten into this accident. If he hadn't fought with his beloved redhead, he wouldn't have moved away. If he hadn't moved away, he wouldn't have had to make the half an hour commute to school everyday no matter what the weather. If it weren't for that commute, Axel would have been safe and warm, probably drinking hot chocolate with Roxas while the watched a movie on the dinky television in their dorm room. They still could have been happy together, and possibly together like Sora and Riku were, even though Axel denied his homosexuality every chance he got. They still could have been at least friends, and Roxas had ruined everything by being a prude.

Suddenly, a wave of something resembling masochism overtook him, and the driving snow felt good on his face. The cold no longer hurt his toes and fingers, but felt warm and a little oversensitive.

It was either masochism driven by depression and guilt over Axel, or he receiving some new after effects of coffee.

He didn't bother to kick the snow off his shoes as the automatic doors of the hospital let him into the warm building. He stopped running, but walked very fast to the reception desk near the entrance.

"Can you tell me where Axel Vlam's room is?" Roxas asked, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

"What's the last name again?" the woman asked lazily and glanced at the list on the clipboard in her hands.

"Vlam. V-L-A-M, you know, flame in Dutch?" Roxas said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Hmm….ah, yes. Mr. Vlam is in room 103. I'm pretty sure he's sleeping, but-"

Roxas walked away, not bothering to listen to the rest of what the woman was saying. He wasn't trying to be rude, but that was the way he got when something was extremely urgent. He had no tolerance for slowness.

He shook some snow out of his hair and off his jacket as he looked impatiently around for room 103. He located it when he saw a bush of red hair in one of the doorways, and hesitantly stepped into the room, removing the last traces of snow from his notebook as well.

It was a typical hospital room, with crappy televisions and heart monitors and weird smelling food. Axel lay on a bed with plain white sheets and a scratchy looking, wool blanket. His leg was in a cast, already signed by what looked like two or three people. An IV was in his arm, and the slow dripping of some kind of fluid told Roxas that the doctor's were trying to prevent Axel from getting an infection, or there was another reason. Axel's hair was sticky with what might have been dried blood, but Roxas couldn't tell. His eyes were closed, his eyelids twitching slightly, as if he were dreaming.

Roxas walked over quietly to the redhead's bedside and sat in the chair that had been positioned next to the bed. The television was off, and Roxas didn't know where the remote was at the moment, and he didn't want to make any noise looking for it.

Instead, he looked at Axel. He seemed to glow, even in his messed up appearance, after not seeing him for a month. The empty hole that had appeared in his chest after Axel left seemed to fill up just from looking at him. He'd missed him so much, and couldn't wait until Axel woke up. Yet something made him afraid. Axel might be mad at the sight of him after their fight, and might even start yelling at him and order someone to remove him.

"Fuck it," Roxas muttered and decided to mentally give his fear the finger. He grasped Axel's hand, which lay limp at his side. Pressing the back of Axel's hand to his lips, he sighed.

"No more drugs, dammit," he heard Axel mutter.

Roxas chuckled and smiled into Axel's hand. "I'm not about to drug you, Axel," he said quietly.

Axel slowly opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times. He raised his eyebrows in surprise at seeing Roxas by his bed.

"Roxas…?" he murmured and brought up his other hand to rub his eyes, not breaking his other hand out of Roxas' grasp.

"The one and, hopefully, only," Roxas replied and smiled shyly.

"Nnn….just wanted to make sure it was actually you this time."

Roxas arched one eyebrow. "You've seen me here before?" he asked and chuckled. "I think they've been giving you too many drugs."

"Nahh, it ain't the drugs," Axel said and shrugged, making Roxas think that Axel had seen 'him' before the accident.

Roxas wondered what he should say next. Should he just come out and apologize and show Axel his drawing? Or should he continue with small talk and just let things either go back to normal or stay the way they were?

"Say what you want to say before you bust a vein in your forehead," Axel said diplomatically and brought up his none broken leg so he could rest his elbow on it.

"…" Roxas paused and fumbled with his sketchbook and found the page he was looking for, placing the book in Axel's lap.

Axel picked up the book and stared at the two words on the page. Roxas knew it was one of his best drawings. It was a heart that had cracks running along the edges, some of the broken fragments drawn on the white ground the heart was standing on. Roxas had sketched the words 'I'm sorry' in curvy lettering that had taken him at least a week and a half to finish.

"Roxas…" Axel breathed and scratched his temple. "Why? You've honestly got nothing to be sorry for."

"But I kept calling you gay and shit!" Roxas protested.

"Yeah…about that. I've recently skipped out of the metaphorical closet…" Axel admitted and ran a hand through his hair.

Roxas shook his head and kissed the back of Axel's hand. "What did I tell you? Straight as a flaming rainbow."

Axel chuckled and ruffled Roxas' hair. "Get me a rainbow shirt and call me gay, I'm fine with it."

Roxas smiled and pressed Axel's hand to his forehead. They stayed in that position for a while, absorbing the feeling of being with each other after so long, until they heard footsteps down the hall.

"-that woman is not a single malt scotch. She's bad, cheap beer that gives you a headache that you can feel in your teeth!" Demyx said as he and Zexion walked into the room.

"Well, my brother seems to think so, so don't bitch about it to me," Zexion said and acknowledged Roxas with a nod of his head.

"Who are you guys even talking about?" Axel asked and grinned.

"Kairi," they said at the same time.

Roxas and Axel both snorted. "That whore?" Roxas asked.

"God, she's like walking crotch rot!" Axel exclaimed and took a sip of the water that was on his bedside table.

"Faghag," Fuu said as she suddenly walked into the room. "From everyone," she confirmed and tossed a card onto Axel's lap and walked back out of the room faster than she had come in.

"What the hell…?" Axel said as he looked at the card. Roxas looked over his shoulder, and saw that the card bore all types of 'get well soon' messages from their friends at the university. "Corny, I like it."

"Ax, what the hell is in your hair?" Demyx asked and pointed to the sticky spot in Axel's hair.

"Oh, that. Little head injury, nothing of importance," Axel said and waved it off with his hand.

"And they didn't let you shower yet?" Zexion asked and curled his lip.

"Dude. Leg. Cast. Water equals no no," Axel clarified, talking to Zexion like he was seven.

"Oh well," Demyx said and stretched his arms over his head. "I'm going to get some food, you with me Zexy?"

"Fine," Zexion said. "But never call me that. Ever."

Demyx was commenting on how cute the nickname was when they walked down the hallway.

"Ohhh, Roxie, hand me the remote, will ya?" Axel asked and pointed towards the window, where the remote sat on the ledge.

Roxas practically glowed at Axel's use of his nickname, which he hadn't heard in so long and missed dearly. He got up and nearly skipped over to the window, where the sun was beginning to peek through the clouds. Roxas walked back over and handed Axel the remote.

"Hang on," Roxas said as Axel was about to turn the television on.

"Hmm?"

"…A-are you going to move back into the dorm?" he asked hesitantly.

Axel smiled and laughed. "Roxie, I never even unpacked the boxes! They're still in my car; I was driving to the college to see if I could move back in!"

Roxas blinked a couple of times, dumbfounded. Then, he gently leaned over Axel to kiss him right on the mouth.

Everything was okay, Roxas thought as Axel kissed him back and grasped on of his hands. After all they'd gone through in the past month, after all the hurt and despair, they were still going. After all the fighting, they were still standing.

--END—

Hmm….I didn't plan on the ending be that corny. Oh well, roll with it! :D

Yes, I had to give Roxas the middle name of his look alike in Birth by Sleep. x3 I couldn't resist it!

I'll explain the single malt scotch line. Apparently Zexy's brother said Kairi was like a single malt scotch, which is supposed to be really good booze, not that I'd know. Demyx denies that and says she's more like cheap beer. And sorry, Kairi fans, for bashing Kairi like that xD I need some comic relief, and Kairi being compared to cheap beer was all I could come up with at the moment!

Mmk, review it, now, or Vexen will come to your house and do what he did to poor little Sora. O.o Do it nowwwww.